kite drift question

[jespin4845]

update

thanks everyone, looping it solves my problem, face planted a couple of times, starting to get timing down and make it work and look pretty

even rode waves on purpose today

i feel a sunburn coming...20 knots and blazing sun...

[KiteloopKip]

You might be whipping yourself downwind, try carving harder to keep your kite in the sky

[tautologies]

though keeping the lines tight is important if you have a kite that falls in..I think in 18+ knots the kite should really not fall in almost whatever you do unless the waves are 15 foot.... The kite should fall back and re-engage..not hindenburg....

[juandesooka]

I posted a question to wave kite forum, but I don't think that gets much traffic. So will restate it here, see if anyone has advice. It's a strategy question ... where to place your kite while surfing.

I am experimenting with riding waves while letting the kite drift ... so no pull from the kite, surfing the wave, then at end of ride powering back up and out.

The wind is sideshore, slightly side-on. The waves are breaking quite close to a rocky shore in shallow water. I have the kite about 45 degrees up, just off of directly downwind, surfing towards it, with the kite drifting backwards with no power in it.

On this particular day it was about 28kts with a 6m BWS kite....so things were happening pretty quickly, especially when accidentally powering up near shore.

It felt safer to have the kite facing out to sea, so that if I needed to get out of there quickly or if accidentally powered it up, I am heading towards safety, not the rocks. However, as I advanced down the wave and gradually moved towards shore, I found the kite would drift further and further out to edge of the window and eventually stall and drop. OR I would have to power it up, ride over the wave, advance to the next wave behind, ride it for a while, power the kite again, advance to next wave, behind, etc.

Thinking about it after, if I had had the kite facing towards shore, then it should keep up as I advance down the wave. I could keep surfing the same wave, without having to exit out of the back. At the end, to exit I'd either have to turn the kite quickly or power up towards shore ... not a lot of room for error. The problem is that an accidental powering up would possibly mean going onto the rocks.

For the drifting surf kiters.....what do you do in this situation? What the strategy?

[BWD]

play with fire and get burned,
or spot your exit and whip the turn back out to sea...
Maybe let the kite ride a little higher ?
some sections may not be worth the risk of making.

[juandesooka]

play with fire and get burned,
or spot your exit and whip the turn back out to sea...
Maybe let the kite ride a little higher ?
some sections may not be worth the risk of making.

Thanks BWD. It sounds like I have the geometry right at least. I was trying to think it through why I kept needing to pop over the wave, get the next one, do a couple turns, then pop over again, etc. I suspect that to ride these close to shore waves with this wind direction, have to be more aggressive / assertive ... takes-yer-chances, as you say. Though I'm a 2nd year kiter and still have the occasional face plant, out of control dragging wipeouts in waves.....so there's some risk in pointing towards shore intentionally!

But the positive side at this point in the learning curve is it doesn't take much of a win to have yet another "best session ever".